


hate makes the heart grow fonder

by jingyeomficfest, sadboyjaebum



Series: Jingyeom Fic Exchange 2018 [8]
Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Kim Yugyeom-centric, M/M, mark and bambam show up for a little bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 19:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17793257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jingyeomficfest/pseuds/jingyeomficfest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadboyjaebum/pseuds/sadboyjaebum
Summary: in which yugyeom hates a lot of things. jinyoung, though, is not included in that list. in fact, yugyeom doesn’t think he could ever hate jinyoung, even if he tried.





	hate makes the heart grow fonder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [honeyandcream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyandcream/gifts).



> for foolishbones! i really hope you enjoy this fic and that it is at least a little bit like what you had in mind

_ yugyeom hates soulmates. not his own, of course, but that’s because he doesn’t have one. or at least for now. no marks, no timers _ — _ there’s no physical identifying cause telling you who you’re supposed to love and when. soulmates are determined by love at first sight. and it’s lame, yugyeom thinks it’s so lame. is he just supposed to look at someone and instantly become overwhelmed with undying care for them? it just doesn’t make sense to him. _

_ or maybe he’s just upset that it hasn’t happened to him yet. _

**SUNDAY**

yugyeom hates the rain.

it’s all cold and wet and terrible. your hair and clothes get soaked, there’s nothing beneficial about rain. (well, maybe it’s good for the environment and underground water levels or something, but yugyeom’s too busy complaining to acknowledge that right now.) jackson’s always telling him to bring an umbrella, but who actually does that? people who are able to magically pull out an umbrella when it rains aren’t real. maybe it’s yugyeom’s own fault for never checking the weather. but again, who does that? not kim yugyeom— 22 year old bio-chem major who hates extreme climates and is always underprepared for the weather. 

it’s may. before monsoon season, but apparently the gods decided to start pouring down two months earlier than usual. it’s yugyeom’s least favorite time of the year. when he gets off his shift at the japanese restaurant close to campus, it’s pouring outside. just his luck. the air is humid and sticky— he hates it. he groans and pulls his backpack further onto his shoulder before leaving the safety of the building’s overhead and running towards the subway station.

it’s packed. that’s not new. the metro is the primary method of transportation in districts in seoul. it’s cheap convenient and the best method of getting from school and work for college students like kim yugyeom. if yugyeom took a look around the station, a good 30% of the passerbyers are probably his classmates. yugyeom’s tired though, so instead of looking around, he stares at his phone while trudging to wait four and a half minutes for his train.

maybe two of those minutes pass and yugyeom still walking, still staring at his phone, so he doesn’t realize he’s crashing into another body before it’s too late and they’re both on the floor of the station.

“oh my god! i am so sorry, i wasn’t looking where i was going. i’m sorry-”

the other boy just keeps on rambling apologies and yugyeom just hums in acknowledgement. honestly, he should be apologizing too, because he wasn’t paying attention either, but yugyeom’s not much of a talker and settles for helping the boy pick up his dropped belongings.

yugyeom hands back the guy’s notebook, which is meticulously covered in stickers for obscure bands— one or two that yugyeom recognizes, then does a quick scan of the area to make sure he’s not missing anything else.

they’re still on the floor and people are walking around them, probably annoyed that two guys are blocking their path but not enough to say anything.

yugyeom turns back to the boy, but he’s already back on his feet and running down the station to catch his train. 

**MONDAY**

yugyeom hates having a class at 8AM on monday. he regrets nothing if not the day that he decided business studies would be a good minor for university. it’s not the worst class, and it does seem helpful in the long run, but having a lecture the next day after a seven hour shift is the most painful thing yugyeom has ever done.

but the school year is about to end and exam season is here so he can’t afford to miss a day. literally. yugyeom’s only at this university on partial scholarship, the rest comes straight out of his pocket. well, more so his parent’s pockets, but he’s picking up as many shifts as he can to help. and if the workload eventually kills him, it doesn’t matter because he’s helping his family. that’s all yugyeom really cares about.

begrudgingly, he gets out of bed. the hour it takes him to shower and walk across campus passes by in a blur as he slowly gets his eyes to open (with the help of some caffeine.)

he greets his friends and some classmates when he gets there, then takes his seat almost immediately because the professor begins at 8AM on the dot. the one and a half hours he spends in class also go by quickly. nothing special, just the usual sit and listen, maybe doze off while trying to take notes or get distracted by his phone.

the professor's telling them about a project they have to do. something about marketing ideas for a soulmate business, it’s all noise in the back of yugyeom’s mind.

it’s not until one of his friends, mark, taps on his shoulder that he gets snapped out of his thoughts and focuses back on the lesson.

“hey yugyeom, pick up my pen for me,” mark whisper-yells.

yugyeom stares at him for a few seconds. “get it yourself.”

“but it rolled all the way over to the side of your desk.”

yugyeom wants to argue back and say that it’s still within a reaching distance of mark, but he doesn’t. he just picks up the pen and throws it in his friend’s face.

"hey!” in a measly attempt of revenge, mark takes yugyeom’s pen and throws it across the room.

“mark!”

they fight for about five more minutes and their whispers are now more like soft talking that can be heard from the few people surrounding them. class gets dismissed and yugyeom slings his backpack over his shoulder as fast as he can. he can’t wait to get out of this hellhole and take a nap despite having just woken up not three hours prior. he’s still teasing mark so he doesn’t notice as his body turns that he bumping into some guy, almost knocking him off of his feet. 

yugyeom turns around to apologize, but all he sees is the back of the guy’s head walking away after regaining his balance. it looks familiar. in the quick minute it takes the boy to climb the mass of stairs towards the end of the room, yugyeom recognizes him as the same guy he bumped into yesterday.

yugyeom wants to say something, but he doesn’t know what. he doesn’t even have the time to think about what he would say, because the boy is already pushing pass the doors and out of yugyeom’s sight.

accidentally bumping into the same person twice. how coincidental.

**TUESDAY**

yugyeom doesn’t talk very much. it’s not that he hates talking, rather he just never has anything to say.

when some freshmen from his advanced chemistry class ask him to join them for drinks on a tuesday night, he says yes. he’s not sure why, but it was probably because he was too nice to turn them down. they said they wanted to treat their senior and see if he has any advice on taking exams since he’s been at the school longer.

when one of them asks for his phone number, he says no. he feels bad, he always does when he turns someone down. (and yugyeom’s turned down a lot of people. he doesn’t quite see it, but he’s been told by a handful of people that he’s very pretty.)

the thing about dating, in most cases yugyeom’s observed, is that it never amounts to anything. it might be this whole  _ true love is real and you’ll find your soulmate one day  _ thing, that sounds like the logical reason to why most relationships don’t work— because there’s someone else out there who the world has deemed cosmically perfect for you.

so in any case, isn’t dating pointless? why start a relationship you know is going to end sooner or later? yugyeom thinks about this as he sips on his beer. then he excuses himself from the table to go to the restroom.

it’s on the way back from the restroom that yugyeom sees a familiar face. or rather, a familiar head. it’s the boy from his business studies class— the boy from the metro station. he’s reading a book,  _ kafka on the shore _ ; it sounds pretentious. yugyeom can just barely see his face poking out from his hood.

yugyeom doesn’t know everyone in his classes but he’s sure he could recognize the majority of their faces. this mystery boy is one he’s never seen before. granted, yugyeom really only talks to mark in that class.

yugyeom doesn’t talk very much, but for some reason he feels the need to talk to this boy. maybe it’s the fact that he’s never apologized despite ramming into the guy twice. maybe it’s because he’s bored and a little exhausted from being with these freshman. either way, yugyeom approaches him.

but yugyeom never makes it more than three steps towards the guy, because suddenly his name is being called out from the table.

"yugyeom-oppa!”

“hm?” yugyeom turns to face them.

“we’re going to get going now, are you coming?”

he thinks it over for a second and then says yes. he lets them accompany him on the seven minute walk back towards campus because that’s how close everything is in seoul. they talk and laugh and giggle somewhat drunkenly. yugyeom stays quiet, and while they insist on walking him to his room, he makes sure they get back to the girls dorm first.

the two minute walk towards the boys dormitory is much quieter. yugyeom lets his thoughts wander. from thinking about the chemistry lecture, to trying to recall his work schedule.

and then to the boy from the bar.

**WEDNESDAY**

kim yugyeom is 22. he has been for approximately six months and twenty-something days. to most, this would mean he’s an adult. he’s supposed to take on all this responsibility and be ready to start his life the second he finishes college. he hates that.

with responsibility, comes the possibility of failure. yugyeom doesn’t like the pressure and he doesn’t like messing things up. being 22 is hard.

it’s wednesday which means yugyeom has his business studies class again. he’s excited to be there, which is odd, and he doesn’t know why.

they’re supposed to be working on their projects that the professor had assigned on monday. but mark, and a lot of other students, just use this time to talk or go on their phones.

yugyeom also has trouble focusing. he’s never been the best at school and right now there’s something keeping his attention away from the work. the boy from yesterday. who’s also the boy from the day before that and the day before that.

yugyeom doesn’t know why he’s so interested in this kid. he rules it off as just curiosity, because it’s normal for people to be curious of others. 

what’s probably not normal though, is the fact that yugyeom cannot stop staring at the boy. but he can barely see his face because he’s seated a few rows in front of yugyeom and towards the right.

yugyeom cuts mark off from whatever tangent he was on this time. “mark.”

“hm?”

“that guy over there,” yugyeom nods his head towards the boy, “do you know him?”

“park jinyoung? yeah i know him. seen him around campus a few times and he’s friends with jaebum.” jaebum, mark’s boyfriend and soulmate, is practically friends with everyone. “oh and i think he’s one of the people who got really drunk at frosh night and got in trouble with the dean.”

“huh.”

”why, do you know him?”

“i’ve never seen him in this class before.”

“i don’t think he talks very much. or at least as far as i’ve seen,” mark notes. then he instantly resumes his previous rant about his psychology teacher and yugyeom’s left to his own thoughts.

_ park jinyoung. _ nice name, he thinks.

mark throws a crumpled paper at yugyeom to get his attention back on him. yugyeom retaliates by full on hitting mark over the head with his notebook. they start wrestling each other in their seats.

kim yugyeom is 22. he doesn’t always act like it, though.

**THURSDAY**

yugyeom swears by god that ramyeon is the best food on the entire planet. who could ever hate such an amazing meal? though others could say the same thing about foods that yugyeom hates. like yukhoe, yugyeom hates yukhoe.

what yugyeom doesn’t hate, is thursdays. he never has classes thursdays and he rarely ever get scheduled for work since the restaurant is a little slower towards the end of the weekdays 

so thursdays, yugyeom gets to stay in his dorm eating ramyeon and watching dramas. sometimes his roommate, bambam, joins him, but that’s only when the latter hasn’t already made plans to get drunk and skip class the next day.

yugyeom’s focus wanders from the tv screen towards his phone. he picks it up and starts scrolling through his social media. he open instagram and, for some unknown reason, starts typing out  _ park jinyoung. _

two results. he clicks the first one and,  _ that’s him.  _ his profile is public, yugyeom notices. yugyeom himself has his own account on private, mostly to spare the embarrassment of his peers seeing his lame pictures.

jinyoung only has four posts and none of them are of himself. just landscapes that look like what high schoolers post when they think they’re going to pursue art and photography.

yugyeom can only tell it’s his account by his profile picture, and even then jinyoung’s face can only be half seen. he’s always wearing hoodies, yugyeom recalls.

he doesn’t bother following jinyoung, or liking any of his posts. he doesn’t know why he looked up jinyoung in the first place. so he just stares at the profile for another minute before locking his phone and tossing it back down the ground.

he looks back at the tv— there’s an ad playing for soulmate placement. the announcer goes on about alternate programs for people who don’t want to be with their supposed soulmate. yugyeom tunes it out. 

soulmates businesses are very common. there must be hundreds in seoul alone. there’s something for everything. whether you don’t want to be with your soulmate or you just can’t find yours, there will be a group a people on the streets yelling that they can help you. 

it makes yugyeom think that soulmates might not even be real. it’s probably all a marketing scam that works because of the placebo of people wanting to fall in love when they meet someone new.

yugyeom remember his project for business studies. he should start that eventually but even the thought of it makes him tired so he decides he should sleep. 

it’s raining outside and the sound of water hitting the window is loud in his two person dorm. he tunes it out.

yugyeom falls asleep on the couch, something that will be very painful for him in the morning. 

and if he dreams about the boy from his business studies class, he tries to tune that out too.

**FRIDAY**

subjectively thinking, yugyeom should drop out of college. it stresses him out too much and based on his own experiences, he think he could make a living without it. he doesn’t have any real aspiration in life, but one less year of school can’t really make a difference, can it?

objectively thinking, yugyeom should stay in college. it’s statistically proven that people with university degrees are able to find better jobs and with more ease. the chances of him being successful in life are higher so why wouldn’t he choose to graduate? he’s already come this far.

kim yugyeom doesn’t let his decisions be influenced by personal feelings or opinions. when he considers things, he looks at all the presenting facts and what they mean. whether it be an important life-changing choice, or something as arbitrary as a movie choice, yugyeom needs to weigh all his options.

(jinyoung is the opposite, yugyeom eventually finds out. yugyeom eventually finds out that a lot of things about jinyoung are different from him, like the way he eats his ramyeon or how much of a hopeless romantic he is.)

“hey yugyeom, what are we doing tonight?”

bambam, yugyeom’s best friend of four years. yugyeom thinks bambam has never made a serious decision in his entire life. he’s the most chill go-with-the-flow type person yugyeom’s ever met. not that he’s indifferent to whatever happens or that doesn’t care, but just that he’s always able to see the good in every decision. he’s not a worrier like yugyeom. 

“i wanna stay in.”

“you’re lame.”

“i’m  _ tired. _ ”

“come on,” bambam whines, “you never want to hang out with me anymore.”

“i have better things to do.”

to that, bambam takes the utmost offense, “what the actual fuck, dude.”

yugyeom doesn’t say anything else and continues staring at his phone. so bambam starts talking again.

"i know you don’t have anything better to do, you’re literally just going to stay here and watch descendants of the sun while eating junk food like you’ve done the last three days.”

“hey! these are my only days off after working for almost two weeks straight! and then i have to go back in tomorrow! i deserve the right to watch dramas and eat junk food.”

“just go out with me, yugyeom! who knows, maybe you’ll meet your soulmate! tens of potential people for you to look at and fall in love with.”

yugyeom groans. mentioning soulmates is the worst possible way to convince yugyeom to do anything. yugyeom hates talking about soulmates.

“come on, yugyeom. please?

yugyeom weighs his options. on one hand, he can stay in and be comfortable; he can finish the drama he started last week or maybe even get going on that business studies project finally. 

on the other hand, he could go out with bambam; he’ll be wearing jeans that are too tight in a room full of too many people. maybe he’ll have fun, because bambam will be there and bambam always brings out the life in things.

some choices are subjective. some are objective.

but truly, it’s impossible to do anything objectively.

“yeah, ok, let’s go out.” 

**SATURDAY**

if yugyeom really hates anything, it’s clubbing. he doesn’t know why he decided to let bambam talk him into going or how bambam even convinced him at all. it’s not like he thought he’d actually meet his soulmate there. he was so tired he ended up leaving first.

(though maybe if he had stayed. he could’ve met his soulmate. maybe he could stayed to see that one boy sitting at the bar reading kafka on the shore under his hoodie.)

it’s only 5pm when yugyeom gets off work. they weren’t so busy at the restaurant today so his manager let him off early. he’s thankful because god knows he needs some decent rest.

he steps out and it’s raining again. it’s been raining the whole week and yugyeom still hates it. rain is something that will always be part of his life, but he will never get used to it. for a brief moment, he considers moving out to somewhere in the states where it never rains, like california. that idea is short lived as yugyeom remembers how much he hates speaking english. languages are not his strong suit.

yugyeom decides then and there that he just hates everything.

he throws his hood on, then turns the five minute walk to the subway station into a two minute run. yugyeom’s a tall person. when he runs, his legs always go faster than the rest of him. this has never been a good thing because once again, he’s crashing into someone and can’t stop until they’re both on the floor.

yugyeom groans as he hits the ground because it  _ hurts. _ then he remembers he practically just tackled someone to the floor of the subway station and immediately goes to see if they’re alright. when he turns around, he sees the guy clasping his hands over half his face.

“fuck, oh my god, i am so sorry. let me help.”

yugyeom reaches for the guy’s hand and takes off his face to reveal a small cut on his upper left check. it’s small, but probably still hurts a fuckton 

“i am so so sorry, this is all my fault i-” yugyeom turns to face the boy and

_ bang.  _ it’s park jinyoung. the boy from his business studies class who’s been showing up every day for the last week. jinyoung who supposedly got wasted at frosh night. jinyoung who choses to read books in bars for some unknown reason. jinyoung who yugyeom has accidentally knocked over three times now 

jinyoung, the most handsome person yugyeom is so sure he has ever seen in his entire life he swears he’s in love.

fireworks. butterflies. whatever you want to call the feeling the yugyeom has right now. he just stares at jinyoung. jinyoung stares right back. they could’ve been staring at each other for thirty seconds or ten minutes. 

to anyone passing by, they probably look like complete idiots.

but to yugyeom, and hopefully jinyoung too, it’s love at first sight.

or rather, love at fourth sight. or however many times yugyeom has ran into jinyoung this week, he’s lost count.

“hi,” yugyeom breathes out.

“hi,” jinyoung laughs.

they don’t break eye contact as yugyeom gets to his feet and then helps jinyoung up. “i’m yugyeom.”

“i know. i mean- yeah you’re in my business studies class.” he laughs again. “i’m jinyoung”

yugyeom laughs too, “i know.”

they don’t know what to do but smile and laugh and stare at each other. yugyeom lets out a breath and jinyoung blushes.

“do you, um, maybe wanna, uh, get a coffee with me?” yugyeom's tripping over his words and he doesn’t know why. jinyoung seems like the easiest person to talk to, but at the same time he can’t seem to think about anything he’s saying. “there’s a, a place right down the street that we can walk to.”

“right now?”

“yeah! unless you don’t want to-”

“no! i mean, i’d love to.” yugyeom’s heart picks itself up as fast as it fell. “it’s just that it’s raining.”

“oh.” yugyeom looks past the overhead of the station and sees the water drizzling down in loud streams. “it’s okay. i don’t mind the rain.”

**A NEW WEEK AND EVERY FOLLOWING**

kim yugyeom loves coffee now. or at least he thinks he does. he goes on four coffee dates with jinyoung before the end of the week and then two more the following. it’s not until jinyoung suggests that they do something else that yugyeom realizes he doesn’t love coffee. he just really loves park jinyoung.

he loves how easily jinyoung makes decisions. he loves how he reads annoyingly stuck up books. he loves how jinyoung is 22 without a solid plan after graduation but doesn’t let that worry him too much. he loves that jinyoung also loves watching dramas and eating ramyeon on his days off.

he loves the way jinyoung kisses him, and hugs him, and cuddles him in bed. he loves the way he takes him out for dates when he stressed and picks him up at the subway station after work.

he loves him for being everything that yugyeom’s not. for being exactly who he is and so much more.

yugyeom’s spent his entire life hating soulmates, but now he has his. it’s hard to hate everything when there’s someone in your life who always makes you see the good in things.

kim yugyeom hates a lot of things. but park jinyoung could never be one of them.

(but he’ll still always hate the rain.)

 

\---

 

“hey yugyeom, are you ever going to apologize for literally tackling me three times before we actually even met?”

“jinyoung! you can’t considered the time i bumped into you in class as tackling you!”

“okay fine. are you ever going to apologize for the  _ two  _ times you tackled me before we met?”

“... i’m sorry.”

“apology accepted now kiss me.”

“can do.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> for the record, yugyeom doesn't like rain and yukhoe because i don't like rain and yukhoe so i projected that onto him
> 
> also i realized later on that jinyoung himself is barely in the actual fic and i hope you don't mind TT
> 
> ALSO I ADDED A TINY BIT OF MARKBUM IM SORRY


End file.
